BRATTLEBORO- Three local men have pleaded not guilty in Windham Superior Court to charges including sexual assault and lewd and lascivious conduct with a 14-year-old girl. The charges stem from an alleged incident that police say occurred at the Wilmington residence of one of the men on the evening of Monday, July 22.

Police say the girl called 911 early in the morning on Tuesday, July 23, after breaking into the Wardsboro Highway Department Garage, and reported that she had been raped by the men in an East Main Street apartment. According to police she reported that she had gone to Wilmington with one of the men, Jonathan Deblois, 21, of Readsboro, after the two made arrangements to meet through Facebook. She told the police that the two had sexual intercourse at the apartment of Deblois’ friend, Dennis Pike Jr., 26, of Wilmington. After the encounter, she told police she left with Deblois and Pike and went to a local store where Deblois purchased alcohol before driving to the residence of another friend, Codie Johnson, 20, of Jacksonville.

The girl told police that she and the three men returned to Pike’s apartment, where they drank alcohol, and she had sex with Deblois again. But she also told police that she remembered that she had sex with the other two men while handcuffed to the bed with pink handcuffs. She told police that they “took turns with her,” and “were laughing and slapping” her buttocks.

Later the same day, police interviewed the three men. According to police affidavits, Deblois told police that he met the girl several days before, on Thursday, July 18, when she and a friend approached him at Wendy’s restaurant in Brattleboro and asked him to go to a movie. Deblois told police that the girl told him that she was 18 years old during that meeting. While the two were at the movies, they left and had sexual intercourse in his vehicle, according to the affidavit.

According to court documents, all three of the men corroborated the general circumstances that occurred on July 22, but all three said they believed the girl was 18 years old. All three also told police that the girl had initiated the encounter with the three men. Deblois told police that she asked him to invite the other two to join them. Both Johnson and Pike told police that the girl took their hands and led them into the bedroom. At least one of the men may have taken photos or video of the encounter, according to court documents.

Johnson told police that, at about 11 pm, the girl “became violent” and Pike told her to leave the apartment. Johnson said she pushed Pike and he was slammed into a wall, starting an argument between Deblois, Pike, and the girl, during which Deblois and Pike were trying to convince her to leave. Both Johnson and Pike said the girl was stumbling around, “as if she were intoxicated.”

It was during that argument, Johnson told police, that the girl told Deblois “that she had lied. (Deblois) asked what she lied about and she said her age. She then told him she was 14 years old, and not 18.” At that point, Johnson told police, he called a friend to give him a ride home.

Pike told police that he and Deblois took the girl home, dropping her off at the Wardsboro Skate Park, where Deblois had picked her up that evening. When the two men returned to Wilmington, they picked up the apartment. Pike said he picked up a set of handcuffs, condom wrappers, and put the items in a bag. The next morning, he put the bag and a stained mattress pad in a dumpster at the state agency of transportation office in Wilmington. According to the affidavit, Pike clarified that “When he discarded the trash bag and mattress pad in the dumpster, he did this to destroy any evidence of the incident occurring at his residence.”

Deblois was charged with four counts of sexual assault of a child, two charges of lewd and lascivious conduct, and one count of furnishing alcohol to a minor. Johnson and Pike were each charged with two counts of sexual assault of a minor and one count of lewd and lascivious conduct. Pike was also charged with one count of furnishing alcohol to a minor, and Johnson was charged with enabling alcohol consumption by a minor. If convicted on the charges, the men could face a penalty of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $10,000 for each count of sexual assault of a child, two to 15 years and a fine of up to $5,000 for each conviction for lewd and lascivious conduct, and imprisonment for up to two years or a fine of $500 to $2,000 for the alcohol charges.